Monthly Archives: March 2015

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

Hello earthlings! Happy Wednesday! This week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

This week we’re talking about American Airlines’ inclusion in the S&P 500. The news sent shares of AAL up more than 13% last week. Will United Airlines join the S&P party in 2015? We talk about that and the more important issue for the major U.S. carriers — investment grade debt ratings.

With profits up, and interest rates low, debt reduction takes top priority in our book.

Speaking of American, the airline’s first big IT “stress test” of the merger begins this weekend, as the airline begins to merge the frequent flyer programs of American and US Airways. Have miles with both airlines? Take a screen shot of your account pages just to be safe. All of this should be completed by next week, depending on status levels, whether you have accounts with both airlines, etc.

In the meantime, chill. Oh, and don’t try to redeem miles on US Airways right now. That window is now about to close as the airline begins the migration.

We also talk a bit this week about those young up and comers in the industry I like to refer to as ‘The Best and the Brightest.’ In my opinion, we are finally beginning to see more of these folks stay in the industry than had been the case in years past. We talk about the reasons and why this is a positive change.

Another week, another pilot strike at Lufthansa. Enough already.

Meanwhile, down in Dallas, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and the city of Dallas continue to fight over Love Field access. As it stands now, Delta has no gate access at Love as of July 6. Will this change? Will the City of Dallas force the issue? Will we finally find out who shot JR?

Congratulations to all the United Airlines’ employees who participated in the recent NYC Half Marathon in the Big Apple! We personally donated 10 subscriptions to PlaneBusiness Banter as part of the effort that benefited the March of Dimes. We welcome those new subscribers to the fold this week.

All of this, plus much more, in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

You know, one of these days we need to stop posting in the middle of the night. One of these days.

Hello earthlings! Goodness. We’ve had back to back issues within less than a week this last week due to yours truly traipsing around the countryside.

Last week I was at the ISTAT Americas conference in Scottsdale. Subscribers got to hear about the Bombardier/Embraer presentation that proved Bombardier doesn’t have a clue as to how to address the perception issues of its CSeries. Then we talked a great deal about AVITAS SVP Adam Pilarski’s update on the price of oil and why he thinks it’s not going higher anytime soon.

For more than a few years, Adam has steadfastly said that oil was going to drop to $40 a barrel — and his reasons seem pretty valid today.

Then we talked about just what Air Lease Corp.’s Steve Hazy wants in Boeing’s new airplane. Hint: Twin aisle. 200-225 seats.

But we talked about a lot more — but that was last week.

In this week’s follow-up issue we give you our take on the Aviation Summit that was held in Washington on Tuesday. This year it became a place where both sides of the Open Skies fight presented their respective cases. Lots of noise around all of this — but all of that really means nothing. We remain convinced that the report the U.S. carriers has put together is more than enough for the State Department to open up consultations on the Open Skies agreements.

We also talk this week about American Airlines’ inclusion in the S&P 500; Ryanair’s plans to start up a trans-Atlantic operation; Spirit’s descent into adolescent frat house humor again; Spirit’s arrival in the monthly DOT Air Travel Consumer Report, and we also have another Cranky Analysis column by Brett Snyder. This week Brett, who moonlights as a contributing editor for us, looks at the Atlanta market. Have fares gone down since Southwest Airlines has eliminated AirTran? Not hardly.

All of this, and much, much more — in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

This week’s “Blizzard” edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we bring you all the good stuff from this week’s JP Morgan Aviation, Transportation and Industrials Conference. This conference is always timed perfectly — it lets airlines update 1Q guidance, and it also allows them to look out into 2Q as well. All the major U.S. carriers presented, including United Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Alaska Airlines, in addition to Air France, IAG, and WestJet.

We also take a look at who could win and who could lose if the New York and New Jersey Port Authority decides to remove the current perimeter rules in effect at LaGuardia.

Oh, and then there is that cat fight going on in Georgia between legislators and Delta Air Lines. But is this really just about taking the airline’s jet fuel tax exemption away? No, as is usually the case with politics, there is more to the fight than meets the eye.

Meanwhile, across the pond, reports this weekend claim that British Airways apparently hacked into the laptops and phones of employees back during the nasty union/management fights in 2011. The catch? The airline owned the phone and/or computers. Interesting story on how all of this came to light.

It was a horrible week for airline stocks last week. Wasn’t too much better for the market as a whole, but the airlines took it on the chin especially hard.

Meanwhile, the price of crude dropped again, but the price of jet fuel rose. We’ll tell you why.

All of this and more in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.